superball<3

[Shaun J]

I wasn't a big fan of hybrids at first, but maaan, those are amazing.

[lillyorchid]

I'm not a fan of hybrids and really don't see the point of them since there are so many different species of snakes out there.... BUT I will admit that the superball really catches me eye.

[Mendel's Balls]

I'm not a fan of hybrids and really don't see the point of them since there are so many different species of snakes out there.... BUT I will admit that the superball really catches me eye.

By that line of reasoing why should we care about morphs then?

[PythonWallace]

By that line of reasoing why should we care about morphs then?

I hear you, but hybrids take it a big step beyond your arguments. I understand that breeding in captivity passes along genetics that might not be favorable or even chosen in nature, but at least you can breed a morph to a normal, get normal looking snakes and be positive that the snakes you have are 100% ball pythons. This isn't the case when species start to become hybridized in captivity. Just look at the carpet pythons and corn/rat snakes. It's almost to the point where you don't know what you are buying. I haven't read through this whole thread, but I read that Super balls are fertile and that F!s can breed with each other or either parent specie. I know that they are hard to produce, but if they were to become the next big thing, people would definately start breeding them back to balls to produce morphs and supers balls w/more bp characteristics. In that case eventually, long down the road, people would be right to worry about the possibility of impure blood in a bp they are puchasing to breed. Or maybe a few people will use bp genes to make a super ball morph, than cross it back a few times to bloods and claim they discovered the first piebald blood. If they got away with that, any future piebald blood or relative of one would never really be a blood python. Again, this is somewhat true for any captive breeding, but to a much smaller degree. Spiders for example, passing the wobble head gene to normals that get used in breeding projects with other morphs. I don't know if it's known whether this gene is seperate from the spider gene yet, but it's just an example. Whatever arguments you have for selective breeding not being natural, hybrids cross any gray line, because pedegree information for reptiles is almost non-existant, and unvarifiable at this point.

[N4S]

Is a hybrid two different species breed?

If so, what other hybrids are there out there?

[Mendel's Balls]

I hear you, but hybrids take it a big step beyond your arguments. I understand that breeding in captivity passes along genetics that might not be favorable or even chosen in nature, but at least you can breed a morph to a normal, get normal looking snakes and be positive that the snakes you have are 100% ball pythons. This isn't the case when species start to become hybridized in captivity.

If the animals will not be released into the wild and any responsible keeper knows they shouldnt be then I still fail to see a compelling reason to differentiate captive normals, morphs, or hybrids.

If someone can produce a captive blood piebald they way you are saying, more power to them.

This may be a bit off-topic...but I share anyway since I thought it was really interesting.

We know from experimental evidence and Mendel's laws of genetics that it is possible to recapture the parental types from an F1 hybrid x F1 hybrid cross. How difficult it is to do this depends on the number of different genes between the two species. For example if the differences between the two species that produced the F1 was only 1 gene then you'd have a 1/4 chance of getting at least 1 offspring that looked like one of the parental species. For two genes it would be a 1/16 chance. For three genes, a 1/64 chance.

For any F1 x F1 hybrid cross...the frequency of the parental species being recovered in the F2 generation (assuming only independently assorting Mendelian genetic factors) is (1/4)^n, where n is number of gene differences between the two species.

People have done genetic archeology experiments with F1 x F1 hybrid crosses to estimate the number of genes between different species. For example, George Beadle raised 50,000 F2 plants from an F1 teosinte (wild corn) and corn maize hybrid cross and found that about 1/500 looked the corn or teosinte parent.

This means that there are approximately 4-5 gene that differ between wild and domesticated corn. So only a small number of genes need to be different in order for a paleontologist or zoologist to classify an organism as a different species. This means that the number of genes between and ball and say an Angolan python might not be that different as well. This also means that the number of genetic variants between recovering a wild-type from a morph x morph cross and a parental type from F1 x F1 hybrid cross isn't off by that much. This isnt surprising since its based off the same laws of heredity.

If you want to watch the lecture I learned about this stuff from see this video.

He talks about the genetic archelogy experiements with corn starting at about 6:30 of the video, continues the talk with similiar experiments on dog breeds and a talk on how a paleontologist would classify different dog breeds as different species simply by looking at the gross anatomical differences in skeletal structures to about 25 min. Large gene differences don't need to really exist for us to classify different organisms as different species.

[Mendel's Balls]

I hear you, but hybrids take it a big step beyond your arguments. I understand that breeding in captivity passes along genetics that might not be favorable or even chosen in nature, but at least you can breed a morph to a normal, get normal looking snakes and be positive that the snakes you have are 100% ball pythons.

One more point...are captive bred ball pythons that come from a long line of captive breeding projects 100% wild population ball pythons? No.....they are not....and that's my point. If released into the wild after generations of captive breeding would they breed with their wild ancestors in the wild? Maybe....maybe not....

Descent with modification my friend and a lot of modification occurs from animals being breed in a captive setting generation after generation vs a wild setting.

[N4S]

What other hybrid reptiles are there out there?

[Mendel's Balls]

Is a hybrid two different species breed?

If so, what other hybrids are there out there?

See this post.

and this thread for a start.

[jhall1468]

I'm with MB here... while I'm not particularly fond of most of the hybrids, it's a matter of personal taste for me. That said, I see nothing wrong with hybrids in particular. This is purely a guesstimate, but I would say some hybrids are a great deal more likely to occur in the wild than some of the morphs we've produced in captivity.

Is there a potential for problems if they are released into the wild? Sure... just like the problems with Burmese being released in Florida creating havoc on the alligator populations. The only thing you can do in regards to potentially "bad" bloodlines is purchasing from quality breeders. Could you imagine one of the major breeders bringing in a genetically tainted BP, and selling the offspring as Ball Pythons?

I realize why some may be a little hesitant, and I don't even question the fact that eventually bloodlines are going to be mixed, and less than honest breeders will sell them as pure. The only thing you can do? Take caution in your suppliers.